LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas would save $670 million over 10 years under a plan to use Medicaid funds to purchase private insurance for newly eligible recipients, according to figures released Wednesday by the Department of Human Services.

"It tells you what it's going to cost in state funds by year," Webb said. "So in the beginning years, you see savings, savings, savings ... Then the savings begin to go down as we begin to have to pay a match."

In fiscal year 2015, for example, the state would see $151 million in savings, while in the 2023 fiscal year, the state is expected to have to pay less than $11 million.

Webb said the newly released numbers also show that there's not a significant impact on the state's budget down the road.

"These are really good numbers," she said.

Webb said there aren't similar net fiscal impact numbers for traditional expansion or no expansion "because those aren't the choices being discussed at the moment."

"Our focus is clearly on the private buy-in, and we wanted to provide new estimates plus comparisons of federal impact given the overwhelming interest in that question," Webb wrote in an email.

House Speaker Davy Carter said Wednesday he was still reviewing the report but called the cost estimates for the private option "favorable" and said they appeared to show that it would be a good fiscal decision for the state.

"These numbers appear to back up the idea that this private option could lower the cost to the state over the long run - really, even over a short number of years," he said, adding that the costs would be even lower if Republicans' Medicaid reform proposals were factored into the analysis.

Under the private option proposal, low-income citizens - those who make up to 138 percent of the poverty line, which amounts to $15,415 per year - would receive private insurance purchased using federal Medicaid dollars. The insurance would be purchased through the exchange created under the federal health care law.